by Susan Solinsky
Recorded by author
How to walk, in 2020 and beyond:
When coals
blister hot
under your feet
and smoke
swirls
to distract you,
become
a firewalker.
Call up
centuries of rites,
ancestors with
hardened heels
blackened nails.
Stay in the body,
it will guide you,
stay upright,
head lifted
above the sternum,
eyes clear,
but soft.
Hear chants
drumming inside
the bones,
open both palms
to receive ash
from deer,
cedar,
coyote.
Keep moving,
water gathers
far below,
in underground
caverns.
Focus on life-giving air,
on healthy lungs,
cool nostrils
not on flames glowing.
Breathe
inside the belly,
steady,
fill your mind
with myths,
psalms,
kaddish,
metta.
See where each
step leads.
Breathe into
the next
passageway,
unharmed.
Tears will come.
Winter waits.
Recorded by Carmen Rumbaut
Susan has lived in the northern foothills of the Sierra Nevada for 45 years, on land once tread by the Nisenan Tribe. Her daily practice is of honoring the ancestors, her own and those who resided on the land and to bless her life and her family’s. She moved from the San Francisco Bay Area in mid 1970’s to settle on several acres with her husband, where she raised a family, worked in the schools, and continued to write as she’s done since childhood.
Some of her work evolved into short stories, dreams, poetry and some were published.
Beautiful, Susan! It’s a lovely meditation.
A spark of hope in the darkness; a leader to the light. Thank you, Susan.
I love Walkabout, Susan. It’s inspiring and I will come back to it when I need it this summer…. Thank you.
So simple. So clear. Deep instruction on bringing suffering on to the Path. Thank you for this offering.
“Walkabout” for me is a sustained allegory of joy and strength, a hymn in the face of a pending holocaust, a strength in going against the grain, a memorial to all who have tasted smoke and ashes and the heritage of being human.